Monday, May 21, 2007

SNG Bankroll Requirements

I'm going to answer a question that was asked by kurokitty. If anyone else has random SNG questions or just general questions I'll probably be willing to dedicate a post to it since my life is generally boring and finding a lot of topics to write about is a challenge.

Note: specific questions are good...questions like "what is your SNG strategy?" obviously are not answerable in one post

kurokitty: What are your 'roll requirements for SNGs, how many buy-ins do you need?

Well, its actually a somewhat complicated question. Its a little bit differnt for every person. For me, its very simple. I like to have 100 buyins at all times because I expect a large portion of my income to come from poker.

How many buyins YOU need to play SNGs is dependent on a few factors:
1. What is your ROI?
2. Are you willing to move down during a downswing?
3. Is your bankroll replaceable if you go busto?

The higher your ROI, the smaller your bankroll can be. If you're beating a game for a sustained 20% then you can probably get away with having 50 buyins. If you're beating a game for 5% or less you probably should keep about 200 buyins. Of course, if you're willing to move down then you can keep whatever roll you want as long as you're disciplined enough to move down when needed and not take shots outside your roll. If you can replace your roll (and you're a winning player of course) then I think it can be appropriate to take shots on occasion.

Basically, if you're looking to play recreationally, you can get away with 50 pretty easily, but if you're going to play professionally, I'd recommend at least 100 buyins. I'm beating the 44s on Absolute Poker for about a 17% ROI (that's DESTROYING the game) and I'm still keeping 100 buyins. Could I get away with less? Yeah probably, but when I went 3 for 56 a couple weeks ago I would have been basically broke if I had 50 buyins. Now, those kind of runs are basically unheard of (easily the worst run I've ever had), but if you play long enough they're going to happen. That's just variance.

Hope this is helpful for everyone.

1 comment:

kurokitty said...

I've only been to Wrigley when I was little. I'm from Chicago originally. My dad picked the weekend and we didn't know the Braves would actually be in town, so that's a bonus!